O King of the nations, and their desire,

the cornerstone making both one:

Come and save the human race,

which you fashioned from clay.

cf Isaiah 28.16; Ephesians 2.14

Listen to this antiphon:

On my placement at St Aidan’s church I have been wonderfully reminded (in being part of a congregation with people from the Caribbean, Iran, Eritrea and Zimbabwe) that Jesus is truly King of the Nations – that, as Paul writes:

For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.

– Ephesians 2:14

Jesus came into the world to bring all nations, all peoples, to God himself. This is the Good News: that there is now no division between us in Christ.

This year, we saw but a glimpse of the joy of all nations in the London 2012 Olympics. It is all these peoples and those who weren’t represented at the Olympics that Christ came into the world to reconcile to himself.